The government will seek private sector help to make India?s 966 employment exchanges more productive recruitment centres.
For the public-private partnership initiative, the ministry of labour and employment has sought the finance ministry?s approval to allow employment exchanges to tie up with private players. The tie-ups will cover training and assessment of candidates, but the main function of registration and placement will be the responsibility of state-controlled employment exchanges.
The government hopes the changes will reverse the steep fall in placements that these exchanges manage to generate.
?The new PPP plan is ready. Once we get the approval from the expenditure finance committee, the proposal would be sent to the Cabinet. We want to start inviting bids for selection of private sector partners from this financial year itself,? Sharda Prasad, director general of employment and training, told FE. Prasad?s organisation runs the exchanges.
Under the plan, the government will invite private companies which have expertise in counseling, training and recruitment to partner the exchanges. These companies will be paid on the basis of their services. Experienced head-hunters are expected to bring in best practices to exchanges.
The initiative has already been vetted by state governments since labour is a state subject. They have also agreed to pay 25% of the fee to be paid to the private companies while 75% will be borne by the central government.
However, Manish Sabharwal, chairman of Teamlease, India’s largest HR services company said the initiative was limited. ?You need to hand over the exchanges to the private sector like Karnataka has done. The hybrid of government running them with help from the private sector in training and assessment is unlikely to work. A PSU naukri.com doesn’t make the cut.?
In Delhi, despite a vibrant job market, the exchanges placed only 200 people in 2011, a sharp dip from the 4,100 recorded in 2010.
Of the 966 employment exchanges in the country, states like Uttar Pradesh (92 exchanges), West Bengal (77), Karnataka (40) and Haryana (56) account for the maximum number. However, none of them have performed well. Placements through these exchanges have slipped almost 8% from 5,09,600 in 2010 to 4,69,900 in 2011.
Prasad said: ?The idea is to bring them (exchanges) on par with private recruitment firms. With this PPP, we want to bring everyone ? private placement agencies, the recruiter and candidates ? on the same platform, so that maximum people can be placed in suitable jobs.?
A labour ministry official, however, said a key reason for the decline in recruitment from exchanges was a fall in the number of employable candidates who have chosen to defer moving into the labour market to get more training instead.
The latest Economic survey had pointed out that the labour force has expanded by a lower 1.2 crore during 2009-10 because more people stayed in education. Labour growth has slowed down in both public and private sectors. While employment in public sector grew at just 0.4% between 2010 and 2009 as compared to 0.7% between 2009-2008, private sector employment grew at 4.5% as compared to 5.1%.
